Thoughts and Experiences from a Midwestern Girl Who's Moving Around the Map!

Chris is a groomsman in his friend Craig’s wedding today (Saturday, May 26th). The wedding is in Chris’ hometown of St. Simons Island, GA. Now Memorial Day weekend is a busy time for travelers, but we got Chris’ airline tickets in advance and didn’t forsee any difficulties on the horizon. So Chris went to Indy yesterday for his 12:45 flight to Brunswick, GA, which had a stopover in Atlanta. The 1st leg of the journey went fine – he got to Atlanta and was on time for the next flight.

Now Chris’ philosophy regarding boarding an airplane is “Why should I wait in line or on the stuffy airplane? I’ll just be the last person in line to board the plane so that I can avoid all of that.” Chris’ seat was one of the 1st rows in the plane, so in a way it made sense – why sit in the closed up little plane and wait when he could be in the airport not getting his toes stepped on and having to breathe in the stale air? So, Chris gets in line at the very end and is patiently waiting to board. Unfortunately, there were either some vary large travelers that got on ahead of him, or someone with very heavy luggage, because Chris and several other travelers weren’t allowed on because it would make the plane to heavy! Luckily, Chris was able to get a flight later that evening (around 6pm) so that he would still make it to St. Simons and be able to catch the tail-end of the rehearsal dinner. And he got a $400 ticket voucher from Delta. Not too bad. I told Chris “Make sure you’re at the front of the line this time” and he said “I’ll be in Brunswick by 8:15pm.”

At 8:20pm I give him a call and say “How’d the flight go?” to which he responds “I’m still in Atlanta”! Chris was kicking himself b/c he wasn’t “on the ball” (his words) and didn’t get in line right away. They let 2 people from his zone board the plane before declaring that once again it exceeded the weight limit. If he’d been 1st in line, he would’ve been on board.

So then Chris was trying to get a rental car to drive the roughly 5.5 hours from Atlanta to St. Simons Island. Now remember that it’s Memorial Day weekend, so prices are through the roof. He finally managed to get one (he did have a $50.00 rental car voucher from Delta). Ultimately he decided to drive straight to Hilton Head, SC where his family is staying for the holiday weekend @ one of their timeshares. That was only roughly a 3 hour drive, which would get him there by 1am. If he’d gone to St. Simons Island, he wouldn’t arrive till roughly 3:30am. Poor Chris! He now has to drive from Hilton Head to St. Simons this morning to be in the wedding, then drive back to Hilton Head this evening. You see, his youngest brother Michael is getting married July 21st to a great girl named Anna, and they are having a drop-in wedding shower in Hilton Head on Sunday. Then on Monday, Chris will have to drive back to St. Simons to catch his flight home to Indy. Somehow, I don’t think that this weekend is going to be as relaxing as Chris was hoping 🙁 But all in all we came out on top: we now have $800 in ticket vouchers from Delta!